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Red Dot Foundation: Youth Innovation Challenge- Ideas and Experiences

Red Dot Foundation: Youth Innovation Challenge- Ideas and Experiences

Here are three teams who are finalists at our Youth Innovation Challenge. They present their innovation and share how the first experiential session has helped shape their ideas.

Team Robot Scavengers.

We, a group of budding engineers always wanted to do something for the betterment of society. After studying about various problems we came to realise that manual scavenging is one of the major issues our country is facing. So, we decided to develop something that could help these people out of inhuman working conditions and provide them with a better lifestyle and job dignity.

Our Robot cleans up the choked gutters which are also partially responsible for the floods in our cities. It works in a cyclic process executing different operations at intervals of time. Our Robot will be powered by a DC battery and automated using a microcontroller. The control system is wireless. The waste material and walls of the sewer are first sprayed with water continuously so that the sludge is loosened after which it is scraped onto a conveyer. This conveyer extends to the mouth of the bot where it is sucked in by means of a pump which is connected to an external bin. This waste can further be utilised as fertilisers.

Our experience at the first experiential session at Karjat has proven to be wonderful in shaping our idea and to bring out the best in us. We were fascinated by understanding that we could learn and adapt so many things from the nature. With help and guidance from experts we created a business model for our innovation. The session at Karjat has helped us explore various possibilities for our project.

Aishwarya Thorve

Team Shakti Political Action Committee

As we engaged with the sustainable development goals and further delved into the question of which problem we wanted to try and solve, we realised a simple thing. A lot of the issues women face as they engage with the world around them are created as policies and decisions are not taken with them as a key stakeholder. The only way to change that is to help women reach decision-making capacity, and in a closed policy circuit like India, civic engagement with various levels of the political cycle is an excellent way to do so. This is how Shakti Political Action Committee (SPAC), a non-profit geared towards increasing women’s participation in India’s political process came into being.

The Karjat session helped us deepen our understanding of how problem-solving works. Instead of trying to tackle the issue at hand in isolation, we decided to give added impetus to ecosystem building. We learned the value of collaboration, creating solid feedback loops, and the importance of defining all the stakeholders we hope to work with.

Harnidh and Sukhnidh Kaur

Team Mehfooz

Recent incidents of rape have stirred the conscience of the nation. Even as India reels from the shock of the cases in Kathua and Unnao, there are more such incidents being reported almost on an everyday basis, such as the ones in Surat and Nadia. These barbaric incidents at various parts of the country have once again put the spotlight on India’s poor track record in protecting its women. Our team intends to improve this situation and to make women feel safe everywhere. We have made an app which provides immediate help to the victims with the help of bystanders. This app indirectly proposes to form a community amongst the public and reduce sexual harassment. This app also helps public to keep a check on the responses of the government officials and police. Along with immediate bystander help this app provides a time and demographic index of the location highly prone to the cases of sexual abuse. We intend on making our city safe for women round the clock with the assistance of responsible citizens and with the help of the police.

The session in Karjat helped us become aware to all the other aspects of this problem and find appropriate solutions for them. The session not only groomed me for this challenge but also taught me something very essential for life. The nature visit session showed me how each and every living creature in this world has its role to play and how efficiently they are each doing their jobs. This showed how, as humans, we should think about our goals and what we are finally giving back to this world.

Shirley Kokane

We have a total of 11 finalists for the Youth Innovation Challenge working on the lines of gender, safety, urban design and planning. Check out our story next month where we will be sharing the ideas and experiences of three more teams. They will be presenting their final pitch in December.